My  solo performance storytelling show, The Sins of the Mothers, debuted on Thursday August 4, at the Minnesota Fringe Festival at Augsburg Foss Studio, 2211 Riverside Ave., in Minneapolis.  I’ve performed in a Fringe Festival show before, as part of a showcase, but this is my first solo show. So far the reviews have been kind. (You can read them on the site; click on the review tab.) There are four more shows:  Saturday August 6 at 2:30, Monday the 8th at 10:00 p.m., Saturday the 13th at 7:00 p.m., and Sunday the 14th at 2:30 p.m.

Of course I should have been tweeting up a storm the week beforehand, at least from a marketing perspective; but from a creative perspective, some of the most important connections and clarifications come as you are working material the last week before a show – at least they do for me.  I also have to admit I have a love/hate relationship with social media.  I still remember my dad taking the phone off the hook and putting it in the utility drawer during dinner. There was a reason.

I have a lot of friends in shows at the Minnesota Fringe Festival, and that means doing justice to them in reviews, too. If I can’t find something nice to say about a show, I don’t review it; that’s just the way I roll, folks.  I’m not crazy about the way the Fringe site sets up reviews; you can’t link to a single review as you can in a blog post. So for better tweet-ability, I will be posting my reviews both here and on the site, as they become available.

Proviso:  I hate the star system.  And I hate that I have to assign a number of stars to a review in order for it to be posted.  I’ve believed in grade inflation ever since the Vietnam War.  So everyone I review gets five stars.  Or, in the case of the Minnesota Fringe Festival, kitties. If you want to know what I THINK about a show, you actually have to read the review.